Slayer Tells Inquiry of Mandela Ally's Killing

By SUZANNE DALEY

Published: August 22, 1997

JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 21—
After spending April 10, 1993, buying and testing bullets and silencers, Janusz Walus drove by Chris Hani's house, as he had done at least three times before, just for ''reconnaissance'' purposes. Although he intended eventually to kill Mr. Hani, one of this country's most popular black leaders, he still lacked a special ammunition to be used with the silencer.

But when Mr. Walus saw Mr. Hani leave his house alone and head for a shopping center, the assassin decided to follow his intended victim and forget about using the silencer. Mr. Walus watched Mr. Hani, who had given his bodyguards the day off, buy a newspaper. Then, using a shortcut, he beat Mr. Hani back to his house and waited, his gun behind his back.

''I saw this was the best occasion to execute my task, and that I wouldn't have a second chance like this,''' Mr. Walus said today, as he described the assassination for South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It was the first time Mr. Walus, a Polish immigrant and avid anti-Communist, has spoken publicly about the killing, which took place in the waning days of apartheid. Mr. Walus said the killing was intended to throw the country into chaos so that the right wing could take over.

Mr. Walus said he did not want to shoot Mr. Hani in the back so he called out his name.

''When he turned I took out the pistol and shot him for the first time in the body,'' Mr. Walus said, without emotion. ''He fell and I shot a second time into his head. I shot him two more times behind the ears.''

At his trial, Mr. Walus and the man convicted of mastermining the assassination, Clive Derby-Lewis, maintained their innocence and declined to take the stand.

But both men, now serving life sentences, have asked for amnesty from the Truth Commission, which was created to investigate past atrocities and help the country put its brutal past to rest. The commission must grant the pardon if all is confessed and the men are found to have had a genuinely political motive for their actions.

The case is likely to be one of the commission's most difficult decisions. The assassination, which took place on the eve of the country's peaceful transition to a non-racial democracy, remains a highly emotional issue in South Africa. An amnesty in this case is being fiercely opposed by the Hani family, by the Communist Party, which Mr. Hani headed at the time, and by President Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, which was working in alliance with Mr. Hani. Polls shortly before his death showed Mr. Hani to be second only to Mr. Mandela in popularity in South Africa.

The amnesty hearings for Mr. Derby-Lewis and Mr. Walus began two weeks ago, but have been frequently interrupted by adjournments as lawyers for the rightists have attempted to suppress a barrage of evidence introduced by the Hani family lawyer, George Bizos. Mr. Bizos, largely relying on statements the men made to the police when they were first arrested, is trying to prove that they have not been telling the whole truth about all those involved in the killing. He is also trying to prove that they never had the approval of the right-wing Conservative Party, to which they both belonged.